‘We were staring down the barrel of a revolver, only inches from our faces’

In order to obtain these dubious duties you had to have served at least four years on the beat and, even though I hadn’t, for the sake of four hours only I’d been given the opportunity as I’d never done it before. I was looking forward to it, especially so as I would be riding shotgun with my mate PC Tony Garnett.

Nothing much happened in the first three hours of my shift and I’d called in to see Jim at the herbalist’s shop on Attercliffe Road. The first time I went in was to see what they sold as I’d never seen one before and I found it fascinating. It was full of chemist’s jars with weird names on them, as well as pills and potions of every description.

The kids would call in for a penny stick of “Spanish” (which looked like a twig off a tree to me) or a liquorice stick or a bag of tiger nuts. People would come in to the shop for cures of all descriptions, including constipation, headaches, piles, nausea, acne, ringworm, scabies and loads more ailments. I never knew whether Jim was a qualified chemist or a quack doctor but he seemed to have a cure for everything. Jim was a nice man who worked at least twelve hours every day, seven days a week and he also sold something I’d never heard of: Vimto and sarsaparilla, which I loved and it helped cut into the dirty clack you breathed in from many steelworks. There was, to me, something mystical about Jim, his shop and his customers and I often spent twenty minutes or so with him.

The Hillman Husky had a blue light on top and a telephone handset inside, exactly the same as the old black ones in telephone kiosks. My job was to use the radio while Tony drove, and also to be observant. We covered a huge area, from Halifax Road at Parsons Cross and right across to Woodhouse Mill about ten miles away, and everything in between.

It was vast and comprised of houses, works and shops containing tens of thousands of people, no wonder we were rushed off our feet.

At about 10.30pm and with just half an hour to go before the end of the shift, we got a call to attend a domestic disturbance in Grimesthorpe about five miles away from where we were. “Here we go again,” said Tony. “Put that light on.” At one point the old car got to nearly 60mph, which was fast then. We got to the house and could hear a man and woman shouting at each other and swearing.

Going down the dark entry, the open back door revealed a couple in their forties rowing like mad. The woman had a swollen eye where he’d obviously clipped her.

He looked a nasty piece of work and he was snarling at her and raising his arm to hit her again. Violence is part of the job and you have to learn how to handle it and to sometimes use it yourself. In a split second I had his arm up his back and a stranglehold round his neck. As I dragged him down the passageway to the car the woman was screaming. “Please don’t let him come back, he’s always hitting me. Here’s his case,” she pleaded and passed Tony a suitcase. Once at the car he calmed down and I released the hold.

The case was on the pavement and for some reason Tony said, “Anyway, what’s in your case?” The man didn’t react and again Tony said, “What’s in your case? Open it.” To us it was a “ten a penny” domestic, but when he went to open the case all that changed.

In the darkness he slowly bent down, flicked the catches open on the case and stood up. We were looking down the barrel of a revolver which was only a few inches from our faces.

Was it real? We didn’t know. Was it loaded? We didn’t know. Would he use it? We didn’t know. How long did we stand there? We didn’t know. What should we do? We didn’t know. What could we do? We didn’t know. When you think you are going to die all these thoughts go through your mind in a flash, and I wondered if Jim at the herbalist had a cure for diarrhoea.

At some point which could have been a second, a minute or an hour later, the man slowly started to lower the gun but with it still pointing at us. Slowly, he moved it in my direction and it was pointing right at my stomach, when suddenly Tony let fly with his right fist, which caught Billy the Kid clean on the chin and he flew backwards over a low wall. I followed him and grabbed the gun which he’d dropped and then we managed to handcuff him, take him back to the station and put him in the cells.

The duty sergeant was Tom Coulthard, an old-timer who everyone respected. Three years before he got a call to attend the East House pub on Spital Hill where three men had been shot.

He attended the pub on his own, saw the carnage and asked the landlord how many bullets had been fired. “Four,” said the landlord. “That means he’s got two left then; where’s the man gone?” Tom asked. “He’s shut himself in the outside toilet; he knows the police are coming.”

With that Tom knocked on the toilet door telling the man to come out. Nothing happened so Tom kicked the door in and dragged the man out, gun and all, including two live rounds. Not to be recommended, but that’s what he did. He arrested a murderer with a loaded gun, single-handed.

“What have you arrested him for lads?” Sergeant Coulthard asked. Tony told him the story and passed him the gun. The old sergeant looked at the gun and said, “It’s too heavy for a real gun, it must be a toy,” and he promptly threw the gun in the bin. “Is anybody hurt?” he asked. ”His chin and my hand,” replied Tony. “Serves him right,” said Tom. “Bring him out here.” We got him from the cells and the sergeant gave him a right shouting at, finishing with the words, “Guns will get you in bother lad. We haven’t time to deal with idiots like you so my men are going to take you to the city boundary and drop you off. Never come near Sheffield again or you’ll be arrested. Okay?” The prisoner nodded his assent.

Neither Tony nor I could believe what we were hearing, but in those days you did as you were told to do. We did just that and dropped him off near Swallownest, along with his suitcase, minus gun of course.

What’s Tha Up To Nah? by Martyn Johnson, published by Pen and Sword £12.99 is available from October 6. To order a copy call the Yorkshire Post Bookshop on 0800 0153232 or online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. Martyn will also be appearing at the Off the Shelf literature festival in Sheffield on October 18. Info 0114 256 5507.